Guitar Amp Emulation Software?

prime2515102

prime2515102

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 3, 2003
Messages
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I googled amp emulator software and a lot of VST stuff came up but it seemed like it was mainly for recording effects and synthesizers. I did see something with Marshall JCM900 emulation, which would be friggin' sweet, but again, it was a VST plugin and it kind of sounds like I'd need some expensive software to use it. This is what I"m looking for...

Freeware I can use that will emulate a guitar amp (actual emulation, not just effects, but effects only will do if that's all that's available). I would like to be able to just plug the guitar into the mic jack and off I go - using the computer as a preamp I guess (I'll most likely be listening through headphones).

I'm using the onboard Realtek ALC889a sound, 2 channel.

I would like to be able to record also but that's optional.

Does anything like this exist (note the freeware part)?

Thanks
 
Not as far as I know. Amp simulation is fairly complex, as such people tend to want money to write it. If you can pay I can point you to plenty of stuff. If you want it for free your are SOL.
 
What do you know of that's cheap?

By the way, I was poking around on musiciansfriend.com and I saw steinburg sequal on clearance for $40... it kind of sounded like what I was looking for but kind of didn't... I read it doesn't support plugins though... know anything about it?

Thanks
 
Amplitube is pretty good. You can get it for the iPad and iPhone too. I don't think you're going to find any freeware solutions.
 
There are several free plugin guitar amp effects, but for that youll a DAW program. Reaper is free (donation) software and accepts loads of plugins. http://reaper.fm/download.php

Then youll need a plugin like freeamp.

Propellorheads record is kind of freeware. It's a demo that doesn't run out, just you can't save files and open them again. But can be recorded to another program internally. It contains a guitar amp simulation. And is for windows an macs.
 
A few of these posts are not correct. There is a lot of free stuff. There is also paid stuff and hardware stuff like Line 6's Pod XT or Tonelab.

You're going to need to look around for Cabinet Impulses. There's a guitar amp modeling forum out there. There are a number of free VST hosts as well and VST amps from sites like this:
http://aradaz.blogspot.com/

I did this a long time ago with all free products and also with a Pod XT/behringer deq at one point. It's doable it just takes a bit of digging around and some slightly confusing VST setup.
 
Use Kristal. It is a free DAW and you can use the VSTs with it.

BTW, i got tired of messing with software to get amp effects, so I bought a M-Audio Black Box years ago. Could not be happier. It has since been discontinued, but you can still find it on eBay. It will also act as a guitar and mic interface fot the PC and it is worth its price just for that.
 
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Thanks for the replies folks :)

I was researching this stuff all day and what seemed to be the best was Ardour so I downloaded Ubuntu (it's Linux and Mac only).

But, Kristal looks like it might be perfect ("connect your mic/guitar and play thru KRISTAL using VST effects in realtime ") so I'm gonna give that a try.

I have an EQ pedal I'll be using before the input in case I need to boost the signal for lower noise. I'm not sure how much gain it provides but I might be able to use Line-in instead of Mic-in which would be nice.

I'll post back when I get everything set up and let you know how it works.

Thanks again :)
 
Not a free solution, but I was able to pick up a used Guitar Rig pedal set with the software really cheap on Craigslist. I run it through the effects loop of my Marshall AVT50 and it's pretty impressive. I had latency issues running the software directly through the microphone jack of the computer on the onboard audio setup, so the pedal route was nice. You are probably going to need to find another way to get the sound into the software to get around the latency issues, but you might get lucky.
 
Well, kristal did the trick, but yeah, that latency sucks. I installed an asio driver but it didn't seem to do squat.

Thanks for the help :)
 
Just thought I'd throw a note in here, it seems that the lack of latency improvement with the ASIO driver is because it requires using the digital input. Oh well...
 
RCGodward, that looks pretty cool but for some reason the recording properties and playback properties won't come up (maybe win7 issue? compatibility mode didn't work) so I can't select the input I'm using. Thanks though :)
 
Well, it turned out that the analog outputs weren't working because of the sound cards sample rate and bit depth (had to set them both to 16-bit/44.1khz) and the Realtek control panel and the windows control panel weren't lining up with each other for some reason. The latency problem is gone!

Also, as good as freeamp sounds, I'm running the demo of Amplitube 3 and it's AMAZING... I might end up buying this one... It still sounds crappy through my pc speakers but listening with my Sennheiser PC151 headset it's fantastic.

Thanks again! :)
 
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